“America needs a military comprised of patriots willing to sacrifice for this country,” Buck, who represents Weld County and the Eastern Plains, said in a written statement to The Denver Post. “Any American who is physically and emotionally qualified should be allowed to serve.”

In those posts, Trump said transgender people in the military cause “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” The president tweeted that after consulting with “generals and military experts,” the government “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.”

Trump’s decision is a reversal of policies during the Obama administration. In June 2016, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted the military’s ban on transgender people from serving.

“While I appreciate and respect the willingness of anyone to step forward and serve in uniform, I agree with the president’s decision,” Lamborn said in a statement. “There are too many unanswered medical, housing, readiness and deployment questions to allow the previous policies of the Obama administration to continue. Our military must remain focused on fighting and winning conflicts and wars; any other considerations must remain secondary.”

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican representing Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, took issue with how the order came down, saying, “President Trump should have allowed (Defense) Secretary (James) Mattis to finish his review of the policy that allowed transgender personnel to serve in the military. … I’m confident that he would have made his decision based solely on the combat effectiveness and the ‘good order and discipline’ of our military.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, said the president’s decision is making the U.S. military weaker.

“Military service should be about defending freedoms, not a mechanism to deny them. Transgender Americans should be able to serve our nation based on their merits and abilities,” Polis, a founding member and co-chair of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, said in a statement. “In a dangerous world, we can’t afford to weaken our military by kicking out high performing service members just because of their gender identity.”

Trump makes our military weaker by arbitrarily kicking out high-performing soldiers based solely on gender identityhttps://t.co/JMurtKXUWl

“Our commander-in-chief should not ban Americans who are qualified to serve in our military and are willing to risk their lives for our country,” Bennet said. “This is an obvious attempt to distract from the Republicans’ disastrous debate on health care.”

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Arvada, commented: “President Trump’s decision today amounts to discrimination against brave soldiers trying to serve their country and it’s wrong. Unfortunately, these actions seem to be commonplace in this White House.”

Mark K. Matthews is the Washington correspondent for The Denver Post. He’s covered Congress and the White House for a decade, first for the Orlando Sentinel and then for the Post. His past work includes two jailhouse murder confessions, investigations of the VA and NASA and a long, strange trip into the mudbogging world of Lake County, Fla.

Politics reporter. He has worked at The Denver Post since the summer of 2014, covering cops, courts, politics, environment, skiing and everything in between. He loves telling stories about Colorado's mountain towns and the Eastern Plains and wants to make sure our newspaper's great work extends into their communities.

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